Tag: NATO

As the title suggests, I am voting for the UK, but more especially for Wales, to leave the European Union. There are many reasons for this decision, some of which are set out below. And while my primary interest is Wales my concerns over the EU encompass wider, even global, issues.

THE BIG PICTURE

There have always been dreamers or idealists who’ve believed that the human race would be far happier if we had one, world government, and that wars could be avoided if we all spoke the same language. Nowhere has this belief been more explicitly stated than in those movies that see Earth threatened with alien invasion / destruction making us all pull together to defeat a common enemy. Heart-warming stuff that makes us proud to be Earthlings.

Away from the idealism I believe there really are powerful and influential people working towards a similar kind of global unity. Let me allay your fears for my sanity by making it clear that I am not talking now about anything as exotic as Illuminati or Knights Templar, Zionists or Nazis, let alone aliens or disguised reptilians moving among us. These are human beings not a lot different to you and me, just more ruthless, and greedy.

Among the more irritating ‘barriers’ to this one-world objective are nation-states, national identities, local governments, languages other than English, regional tastes and peculiarities. In fact, many of the things you and I cherish. So another objective for our Elite is to break down these ‘barriers’, and this is done by promoting the growth of supra-national bodies and encouraging the ‘homogenisation’ of the human race.

Perhaps it’s the absence of reptilian characteristics, but those I’m referring to are not easily identifiable, though many of them will be found at the regular meetings of the Bilderberg Group. (That said, the Bilderberg Group may itself be little more than a useful distraction for conspiracy theorists.)

Those I’m discussing are an ever-changing but self-perpetuating Elite that operates in the way secretive or semi-secretive groups have operated throughout history; that is, by infiltrating other organisations and also – more importantly – by recruiting those they see rising within the corporate world, the media, politics, the military and other fields. You cannot apply to join.

THE POLITICAL ROUTE

The best way to progress their strategy is by covering both bases in democracies where we find two major parties split along vaguely Left / Right lines, and then work through both of them. Achieved by largely removing ideology from politics and reducing political ‘debate’ to sound bites, photo opportunities, and taking up ‘positions’ that mean absolutely nothing.

In recent decades this blurring has been achieved in the USA, the UK, and other Western countries sharing such a political system. And yet, the rise of Trump, the support for Sanders, the election of Corbyn (even if it was achieved by the hard Left), and increasing support for populists and nationalist parties on the European mainland, presents our putative world leaders with the biggest threat their plans have yet faced. That’s because these hiccups warn them that across the Western world an increasing number of people believe they are ruled by elites out of touch with their concerns. And they’re right.

The Washington Post and the New York Times rail against Trump, ridicule his supporters, but those putting their faith in the Republican presidential candidate are not all gun-toting rednecks; they are people who have seen their jobs exported to low wage countries and their living standards fall, who have seen their patriotism exploited by one pointless and expensive war after another, who have lived through a recession caused by the reckless and criminal behaviour of people who all escaped punishment, who have seen the America they grew up in change around them.

To summarise: the aspiring world Elite has been clever in taking over the political centre ground and using that control to cast the cloak of moderation over its own ambitions. To the extent that anyone outside of the imposed boundaries of ‘responsible’ debate automatically becomes ‘dangerous’, or an ‘extremist’.

You know how clever this Elite has been when you hear socialists defend the EU for what it’s done for workers rights, and women’s rights, and God knows what other acts the bruvvers hold to be virtuous. I say that because the EU is merely a halfway house to the world our Elite craves.

The EU serves to lull us into a resigned acceptance of vague and distant government over which we have no control, but disguises its intentions by doling out goodies to appease the gullible. The question I would ask those currently defending the EU is this, if the Elite I’m describing achieves its objective of an unelected global government that cannot be removed, do you really think they’ll still be handing out goodies?

THE WORLD OF HARRY LIME

If we would seek a birthplace for this Elite, then it has to be the USA. There’s a temptation to assume that it grew out of that bogeyman of ’60s activists and folk singers, the military-industrial complex, but I believe we need to go back further.

In the first decade or so following the end of World War Two Europe was a very uncertain place. Not only were the Soviets camped in the east but in the west communist parties almost came to power through the ballot box in Italy and France. This frightened both the USA and the European elites trying to re-establish themselves after the disruption of World War Two.

There were a number of initiatives used to counter the communist threat to western Europe. First there was NATO, with the Treaty signed on April 4th 1949. Next came the forerunner to the Common Market and the EU, the European Steel and Coal Community, announced by Robert Schuman in May 1950.

Taking the fight to the communists was Gladio. Formed as a ‘stay behind’ force in the event of a Soviet invasion Gladio developed into a terrorist organisation, using false flag attacks – as part of the Strategy of Tension – to lose the Left political support and justify repressive legislation. This culminated in the 1980 Bologna train station massacre, which was initially blamed on Left-wing terrorists but was actually carried out by fascists directed by the Italian secret service.

Operation Gladio can be traced through NATO back to the Pentagon and the CIA. Unsurprisingly, no one likes to talk about Gladio nowadays.

Finally, we had the first meeting of the Bilderberg Group at Oosterbeek in the Netherlands in May 1954.

I don’t want to dwell too much on this aspect of recent European history partly because it’s all rather distasteful, but without appreciating what was happening in the decades following WWII, it’s not easy to understand where we are today. The Strategy of Tension that invents enemies or exaggerates threats in order to justify repression is something that all governments employ to some extent. How far they’re prepared to go along this road depends on how serious they regard the challenges facing them. Though when the strategy is externally controlled then national governments may not even be consulted.

By the late 1980s we were into the brief era of Glasnost and Perestroika. There were many now in the USA who believed that their country had rescued Europe from the Nazis, had then pumped in huge amounts of cash to re-build Europe, before saving us from the Communists, and that all this entitled the USA to some control over Europe. And some tangible benefits from that control.

NATO, RUSSIA AND TURKEY

The Soviet Union and its former Warsaw Pact allies falling apart after 1990 should have meant the end of NATO, a military alliance set up to counter the spread of Soviet communism. But no, NATO has continued to grow, and all in one direction – eastward, seeking to encircle Russia.

NATO and the EU work hand in hand. It begins by, typically, exaggerating the threat of Russian aggression to frighten eastern European states into joining NATO, with membership of the EU offered as a sweetener. For a post I wrote in February I drew up a little table showing how joining NATO is invariably rewarded with EU membership. I reproduce a slightly amended version here.

Turkey is the obvious anomaly, but rest assured, the Turks have been promised EU membership . . . by the USA. Though it’s proving to be a hard sell. For a clear majority of the EU’s people do not want Turkey as a member, but the promise has been made and now a way must be found to give Turkey EU membership, or, at least, the benefits of EU membership, and this can only be done by denying the people of Europe a say in the matter.

Turkey, that refuses to acknowledge its genocide against the Armenians. Turkey, a country waging constant war against its Kurdish minority. Turkey, friend of ISIS. Turkey, the Islamist dictatorship on the borders of Europe. We are supposed to welcome this country into the EU simply because it’s a loyal ally of the USA in its power struggle with Russia! I’d rather have Russia in the EU.

THE CAMPAIGN

What I’ve written should explain why President Barack Obama has made a number of interventions in support of the UK staying in the EU. In one speech he went as far as saying that we would be punished if we left the EU. (The BBC report I’ve linked to suggests that Obama was ‘doing Downing Street’s bidding’. Do these people understand nothing!)

The USA wants the UK to remain in the EU for the very reasons President de Gaulle wanted to keep the UK out – because the UK (more especially, England) will always act as Uncle Sam’s Trojan Horse. The UK in the EU will make life easier for major US corporations, and continue to isolate and taunt Russia. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership should be a warning to everybody.

The campaign itself has been distinguished by its lack of honesty, the absence of rational let alone intellectual discourse, and now, as I write this, by the hysteria surrounding the murder of MP Jo Cox.

Apparently her killer, rather than being an unhinged saddo, living alone and friendless since his granny died, is a ruthless assassin with links to US white supremacists, the apartheid regime in South Africa (toppled 22 years ago!), and motivated by his hatred for the EU. To believe much of what I’ve heard and read in the past 72 hours, the murder might as well have been committed by Farage, Gove and Johnson.

Something else worth mentioning about this killing is that once again we see the Elite and the Left in harmony. In times past of course, in the good old Gladio days, the Elite would have been targeting the Left, but currently the threat to the Elite’s agenda comes from the Right, both in the USA and in Europe, and so public opinion must be mobilised against that threat.

The ‘National Newspaper of Wales’ on Saturday told us, ‘Wales united in grief’ – for a woman we’d never heard of until she was murdered! ‘National grief’, if such a thing exists, is surely reserved for tragedies like Aberfan or, if we are dealing with individuals, then someone the nation knows and loves.

Also on the front page the Mule told us that the “Nation stands together to remember MP Jo Cox”. No, not really; it was just a few politicians campaigning. This killing was a truly horrible deed, but God Almighty! it has been shamelessly and distastefully milked by the Remain camp.

Elsewhere we have had various groups coming out in support of remaining in the EU, including of course (drum roll) ‘The World of Showbiz’. But what sort of moron is influenced in making a very important choice by a soap opera ‘star’? Come to that, why do luvvies believe that anyone with an ounce of sense gives a toss about their opinions? Is life for them one big Graham Norton Show?

The BBC and the rest have played ball to the extent that just about anyone arguing against EU membership belongs to the ‘Right Wing’ or the ‘Extreme Right’; and is ipso facto a ‘racist’ or a ‘fascist’. It seems that in the modern political spectrum there is naught but a wasteland between the advance guard of the Fourth Reich and the cuddly and ‘responsible’ Centre-Right represented by Cameron, that merges seamlessly into the Centre-Left.

Which is strange, really, because somewhere in this ‘wasteland’ is where I locate myself, and I know that the neighbourhood is becoming daily more popular.

And yet, the irony, not lost on anyone who follows and analyses what goes on in the world, is that the Elite-NATO nexus has not hesitated to fund and to arm overtly fascist groups in Croatia, Ukraine and elsewhere. So the message is clear – there’s nothing wrong with fascism per se but the jackbooted ones must be on the ‘right’ side.

Of course, there’s no escaping the fact that this debate is essentially a Left / Right split. Perhaps this was inevitable, and I have no problem with it. What I do take issue with – and not just in this referendum campaign – is that many on the Left seem to believe they are both intellectually and morally superior to their opponents. In their eyes I am both stupid and evil for writing this.

THE EU

There’s no avoiding it, I suppose; we must discuss the beast itself. Though I don’t really want to spend too much time on it. Let’s start by going back in time a bit.

Given my admiration for General de Gaulle, his l’Europe des patries held some attraction. Then there was the alternative of a fully federalist model that promised to do away with the existing nation-state and perhaps revive Europe’s ancient regions and submerged nations.

But whichever model was chosen I believed – influenced by books such as The American Challenge – that the ambition should be a continent standing up to both the USA and the Soviet Union. A beacon to the rest of the world, offering a real alternative that balanced individual freedoms with collective responsibility for the less fortunate.

The bureaucratic aberration we see today results from neither of those options I considered all those years ago. The EU today is little more than the political wing of NATO. The EU was long ago adopted by the Elite as a vehicle to carry forward its agenda. The EU today, given these links, and how NATO and the Elite provoke Russia, may even be a threat to peace.

From The Telegraph online, article by Laura Hughes

I suppose I also have to address immigration seeing as this is said to be the most important single reason for people in the UK wanting to leave the EU. My position is quite simple; genuine refugees should be taken in, but economic migrants should not be allowed to enter the EU unless needed. As for migration within the EU of EU citizens, well, that’s part of the package, the only way to stop it is to leave.

The reason the issue is so fraught, and divisive, is that with immigration we once again see the unholy alliance between the Elite and the Left. The latter seems to believe that Europe should take in just about anybody, with few if any checks. (The attitude that led to the wake-up call of New Year’s Eve in Cologne, where the attackers were not refugees from Syria or Iraq but young, and mainly illegal, male migrants from North Africa.)

The Hard Left cries crocodile tears over refugees but in reality it views immigration as just another weapon in its ongoing war against the corrupt and capitalist West. (Yawn.)

The Elite of course supports uncontrolled immigration because this is a force for homogenisation, and also because it drives down wages. But using the mainstream media to vilify as ‘racists’ all those who have reservations about immigration is insulting to tens of millions of decent people across Europe, and it will backfire.

It is already backfiring, on both sides of the Atlantic. The Austrian establishment suffered a bit of a shock recently when Austrians nearly voted in a Freedom Party president. (Note that for the Grauniad the FPÖ is a “far-right party”.) Now new President Christian Kern is considering introducing legislation to ban the peaceful – but embarrassing – protesters of the Identitarian movement. “We have to think about whether we are too tolerant”, says Kern. Chilling words.

The conundrum for the Elite, and indeed for those who like to project themselves as ‘moderate’ and mainstream politicians, can be spelt out thus: For reasons commendable or not you want immigration, but you don’t want the political drift to the Right that challenges your authority and your plans. Yet uncontrolled immigration – even the perception of uncontrolled immigration – will always drive many voters to the Right.

I shall end with one final example of how out of touch those running this circus are with the ordinary people of Europe. One issue that I guarantee unites people across Europe is their contempt for tax havens, so beloved of the Elite. Yet Europe has a tax haven at its very core, it’s called Luxembourg.

WEXIT

When I joined Plaid Cymru back in the mid-’60s there was no question that the party believed in independence. There was no debate over the issue; it was independence, a seat at the United Nations and all the other trappings of statehood. The problem was that this inevitably raised the response that accused us of wanting to ‘cut Wales off’. (‘Cut’ being an emotive and loaded word in almost any context.)

Then along came the Common Market, and Plaid Cymru seized the opportunity to promote ‘Independence within Europe’ which, it was hoped, would avoid the damaging ‘cut’ riposte. It hasn’t really worked. In fact, UK membership of the EU has not made Plaid Cymru any more popular; it has simply allowed the party to pretend that Wales somehow has a real presence in Europe, while simultaneously arguing that independence is soooo twentieth century.

But the argument being pushed more than any other, by Plaid Cymru and the other parties, is that Wales ‘does well’ out of the EU. What this really means is that because Wales is relatively poor we get lots of hand-outs. It’s quite incredible to hear ‘Welsh’ Labour, largely responsible for Wales’ poverty, extol the benefits of EU membership for this reason.

There’s no doubting that Wales has received billions in EU hand-outs – but look around you, where are the benefits? The truth is, as I keep saying, far too much of this funding has been wasted building up a whole stratum of Welsh life beholden to the statist ‘Welsh’ Labour Party. It’s almost as if our politicians are afraid to do what’s best for Wales in case it gives us ideas.

Wales today is asleep, lulled into accepting a steady, subsidised decline. We are told by all political parties that we must be grateful for these dollops of cash because we can’t do anything for ourselves. Therefore we must stay in the EU to ensure the cash keeps coming. There needs to be a better reason than that.

Finally, I ask you to consider the reasons given, by different voices, for Wales to vote Remain, and then decide whether – like me – you don’t in fact view these as the ‘cold shower’ Wales needs to finally wake us up and get us moving in the right direction:

We shall lose the EU hand-outs and these will not be replaced by Westminster.

Leaving the EU will result in economic meltdown.

The City of London will be replaced as Europe’s No 1 financial centre.

Brexit is fundamentally English nationalism.

Post Brexit the UK will experience the most repressive and anglocentric government ever known.

Scotland will probably become independent.

I know I’m lining up with some unpleasant people (I see through them better than most), but the issue is too big to let personalities intrude. The European Union is a bureaucratic nightmare run by weaklings and a failure on every level. Worse, it no longer serves the interests of Europe’s peoples but those of a shadowy Elite that regards all nationalities, and all languages other than English, as obstacles to a world unified without the knowledge or consent of its peoples.

On Thursday you won’t just be voting on the European Union; a Remain vote will also be an endorsement of NATO’s dangerous Bear-baiting; of the Elite’s global control programme, and, possibly – more likely if democracy threatens to break out – a return to Operation Gladio.

You don’t want to live in this dystopian future, few do, but the wheels are already in motion. If you care about Wales, and if you want to see Wales survive and prosper as a nation in her own right, then you must vote to leave the European Union as the precondition for leaving the United Kingdom.

This post examines two important votes being held in 2016; the Welsh Assembly elections on May 9th and the EU referendum on (possibly) June 23rd.

First, we shall look at the elections to our beloved and respected Assembly, wherein may already be found talent dazzling to the point of being a hazard to pilots (not that many of those intrepid aviators will be heading for the local airport) before moving on to consider the anticipated EU referendum

WELSH ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS

At present, Labour has 30 of the 60 seats, and is almost certain to lose a few, the only questions are, which ones, and to which other party or parties will those seats be lost?

To help you make comparisons I have compiled the table below, which shows each party’s percentage of the vote in 2011 compared with the percentages predicted by the latest available poll. You will note that the figures in the recent poll do not add up to 100, this is almost certainly due to respondents stating their intention to vote for the kind of minor parties that combined to give us the ‘Other’ figure in the 2011 results.

These poll figures look credible for Labour but rather odd for the other parties due to little or no difference between the constituency votes and the regional list votes. Even so, the poll confirms that Labour will be the biggest loser and Ukip the biggest winner.

Though the level of Ukip’s support is rather surprising seeing as the party keeps choosing unknown or unattractive candidates (the one often mutating into the other) and in other ways shooting itself in both feet. It begins to look as if Ukip’s leaders could be filmed sacrificing Romanian migrants on Aberystwyth promenade, bollock naked with their nether regions painted bright green, and still not lose support.

As for the other parties, it’s very much a case of little or no change which will, after almost a year of Tory government at Westminster, be a relief to the Conservatives; an even bigger relief to the Lib Dems following their near-extermination in the last May’s UK elections; but a major disappointment to Plaid Cymru, who should be the main beneficiary of Labour and Lib Dems losing support.

Though looked at from another angle Plaid’s level of support might pleasantly surprise some. Let me explain. The Party of Wales would have us believe that it’s a radical party, offering change, improvement. Yet down in Carmarthenshire, where Plaid became the larger party in a coalition last year (after the ‘Independents’ refused to work with Labour any more), Mark James, the tyrannical and vindictive chief executive, carries on as if nothing has happened!

The other party to be disappointed by the poll findings will be the Green Party of Englandandwales. Despite claimed increases in membership, and Welsh people being spotted in the ranks, it seems that the Greens still have difficulty in attracting support. But then, this is a party so English, so frightfully middle class in its membership and support, that it makes the Tories look like a Welsh proletarian rabble.

As I’ve been predicting for some time now, after the Assembly elections we shall probably see Labour in coalition with Plaid Cymru. Though if by some some electoral miracle Labour can cobble together a coalition with Lib Dems and Greens that leaves Plaid Cymru out in the cold, then Plaid will be condemned to another five years of impotence. A period the party may struggle to survive.

Ukip will do very well. In June last year I predicted the Kippers would gain 7 seats, and in October I upped my estimate to 10. (The latest poll suggests 9.) If, as is now being predicted, the EU referendum is held in June, and that EU campaign overshadows the Assembly elections, then Ukip will be the only beneficiary because all the other parties are pro EU and will be singing the same song.

And here’s a thought to cheer you all up. If the Assembly elections are indeed dominated by the EU referendum debate then it is not inconceivable that Ukip could win seats in ‘volatile’ constituencies that in May will be five- or even six-cornered contests. Gaining a percentage of the vote in the low to middle twenties could do it.

‘Nathan Gill, AM for Ynys Môn’ has a certain ring to it, n’est pas?

Gill of course is currently an MEP, which is a handy link to the next part of this post.

THE EU REFERENDUM

THE BIG PICTURE

When I was young and idealistic, the matinee idol of the nationalist fringe, I considered myself to be quite the ‘European’. With my study of history, my admiration for Charles de Gaulle, being avowedly anti-communist, and after reading The American Challenge, I persuaded myself that a strong Europe was needed as a bulwark against both the USSR and the USA.

I still believe I was right, but the world has moved on. For a start, the Soviet Union is no more, and its demise was the cue for the USA to begin its advance in eastern Europe, first with its war on Serbia and then by gradually encircling Russia with newly signed up members of NATO. Have you ever stopped to think how weird that is?

NATO started life in 1949 as an alliance to deter the Soviet Union from invading western Europe (if indeed the USSR ever had that intention). It was a Cold War organisation, from the era of Dr Strangelove, which should have ceased to exist along with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, yet NATO has expanded since the Cold War ended. This is bizarre.

Unless of course you understand that the USA (and to a lesser degree, the ‘West’) must have enemies. Now this presents a problem for a country bordered only by friendly and peaceful Canada to the north and to the south by a third world state where the strongest armed forces appear to be those of the drug cartels.

Clearly this lack of a credible threat is an inconvenience to the military-industrial complex, neocons, the National Rifle Association, big corporations, news media, and politicians looking to make a name for themselves. So ‘enemies’ have to found elsewhere, which has resulted in a succession of ‘threats’ being exposed since the Second World War. These are often pantomime villains of dusky hue, with difficult to pronounce names, and living in far-off lands of which most Americans know very little. Plus of course we have the post WWII constant – USSR / Russia.

At this point many of you will be wondering why, in a section headed ‘The EU Referendum’, I’m banging on about NATO and US foreign policy. There are two principle reasons.

First, a single political unit allows the US – as we are now seeing with TTIP – to gain preferential access to the richest market on earth through influencing just a few people. The danger here should be obvious to all. Second, the EU is viewed by many US policy-makers as a sister-body or even an extension of NATO. It’s no coincidence that NATO and the EU have marched east almost hand in hand.

Let me try to explain the NATO-EU link with the table I’ve compiled below. It gives the dates that eastern European countries joined first NATO and then the European Union. And it has always been in that order (sometimes simultaneous), but never is EU membership allowed before joining NATO.

The delay in Albania’s accession to the EU can be explained by the fact that the country is a ramshackle land with large parts, especially the area bordering the Serbian province of Kosovo, controlled by people-smugglers, drug-traffickers, organ-harvesters and a motley assortment of old-fashioned vendetta-pursuing, blood-feuding bandit chiefs. Albania’s chief export is gangsters.

An exception to the NATO-followed-by-EU rule is of course Turkey, which has been a NATO member since 1952. No surprise then to learn that there have always been voices in the upper reaches of the EU arguing in favour of admitting Turkey. ‘Bridge to the Islamic world’ and other bollocks has been spouted in support of this idiocy. The truth is that the USA wants to reward its faithful ally – and currently chief Bear-baiter – so it periodically applies pressure on the EU to let Turkey join the club.

Turkey, that backward, Islamist state where the security services bomb their own people. Turkey, the country that persecutes its fifteen million Kurds and has a very ambivalent attitude towards ISIL. Turkey, that just a century ago introduced the world to the concept of holocaust with its butchering of the Armenians.

In the ongoing conflict in Syria the USA has encouraged Turkey to provoke Russia, and although the US may belatedly be trying to rein in its proxy, there remains the possibility that this dysfunctional country could start World War Three. If Russia does retaliate to Turkish provocation then we (and here I have to mean the UK), as fellow-members of NATO, are Treaty-bound to line up with Turkey.

How do you feel about going to war with Russia because Turkey has done something stupid and deliberately provocative?

THE VIEW FROM WALES

Leaving aside these wider concerns, what should be our approach to this referendum from a purely Welsh perspective?

‘Wales does well out the EU’ is a mantra trotted out by those urging us to vote to stay in. ‘Does well’ is just a euphemism for hand-outs, we export little. In other words, we get EU grants because we are so bloody poor. Which makes this ‘argument’ just another defence of begging-bowl politics, an acceptance of Wales’ poverty and deprivation.

And what has happened to the billions we’ve received in EU funding? Where are the great infrastructure projects? Where is the multi-skilled workforce we’ve trained? Where are the successful indigenous companies the funding was used to start? Nowhere to be seen, bois bach!

That’s because the greater part of this windfall has been wasted on the shysters and parasites of the Third Sector. Most of whom – unsurprisingly – seem to have Labour Party connections.

If the UK left the EU then the UK government would have to make up the lost EU funding. If it didn’t, we’d have to go without the Third Sector. (Don’t cry!) And if the UK government didn’t make up the shortfall, then it might cause a few more people here to wake from their slumbers.

Looking further afield, the UK leaving the EU would have far more serious repercussions for England, more specifically south east England, and to be very, very specific, the City of London. Because if the UK left the EU then many of the banks, investment houses and other financial institutions would decamp for Frankfurt, Paris, Zurich, Berlin, etc.

This would result in tens of thousands of very well paid jobs being lost to London, and a few hundred thousand more would be lost in a knock-on effect. So just spare a thought for all those Lamborghini salesmen, tailors, high-class hookers, hairdressers, tattooists, coke suppliers, estate agents, jewellers, etc., etc.

Remove the City of London from the balance sheet and the economy of England heads south very fast. With the City of London creating less wealth the UK economy must suffer, and despite the malaise being centred on London we can be sure that – as ever – the Old Etonians will see to it that peripheral areas suffer most.

This should serve as another wake-up call to the slumberers who unquestioningly believe that London rule is best for Wales.

Another argument used is that we must vote to stay in the EU to prove how different we are to England (assuming the English vote to leave). A position that invariably cites the fact that Scotland will definitely vote to stay in. Let’s look at this argument in a bit more detail.

First, Wales is not Scotland. The obvious stated, let me add that many hundreds of thousands of Scots will vote to stay in the EU for reasons that have little or nothing to do with the EU itself. It’s all about promoting independence, hoping that England – or Englandandwales – votes for Brexit.

Should there be a vote south of the border to leave the EU, and should that decision lead to Scottish independence, then it will reverberate here no matter how Wales voted. Scottish independence will concentrate minds in Wales no matter how it comes about and will make redundant whatever views may have been held in Wales when Scottish independence was just a vague possibility.

So let me spell it out. How Wales votes in the EU referendum is almost unimportant. The vote is being hyped up in Wales by those posturers who like to regard themselves as ‘progressive’, and done in order to show how superior they are to the ‘xenophobes’ who want to leave the wonderful EU. Smug, precious, and self-deluding bollocks!

CONCLUSION

There is no party standing in the Assembly elections for which a nationalist can honestly vote. That being so, there is an argument to be made for voting for any party that might help weaken the regional socialist party that for decades now has done so much damage to the Welsh cause.

Personally, I probably won’t bother voting. There’s a temptation to toddle along to the polling station and scribble ‘None of the above’ on my ballot paper, but that’s always struck me as a bit desperate unless part of an organised campaign.

When it comes to the EU referendum I shall definitely vote to leave the EU. That’s because the EU we know today is a great disappointment for someone of my age who genuinely wanted to see a strong and democratic Europe play a leading role in the world.

Instead, we have a byzantine nightmare that I suspect no one properly understands, a monster created by bureaucrats that seems to have been subverted to serve US economic and strategic interests rather than working for the good of Europeans.

And yet, I could still be converted to a united Europe, a European army, a European diplomatic corps . . . but my Europe would need leaders of stature, not the anonymous, paper-shuffling committeemen we are cursed with today.